Watchdog to Study Abuse Complaint

By Genevieve Carbery
Irish Times
March 22, 2012

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0322/1224313702538.html

CONCERNS RAISED in the Cloyne report about a Garda failure to investigate abuse complaints are being examined by the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission.

The investigation relates to complaints from two women of child sexual abuse by a priest named in the report as Fr Corin.

The report into the Catholic diocese published last year was critical of the lack of a proper Garda investigation into the complaints.

Two women made their complaints to Catholic Church representatives between 1994 and 1996 but the alleged abuse took place decades earlier.

Both complaints were reported to the Garda in March 1996 by Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan, according to the Cloyne report.

The Garda ombudsman is investigating the Cloyne report’s “stated concerns about the Garda involvement in the case involving a priest described as Fr Corin,” it said. The Garda investigation was “clearly not commenced”, the report said. “The senior garda involved insists that an investigation did commence but the evidence demonstrates otherwise. There are no investigation files in existence,” the Cloyne report said.

The report was not able to establish why an investigation did not take place but had “no doubt that there was no investigation even though there was a complaint”.

Complainant “Nia” said Fr Corin would sit her on his lap and put his hands under her clothes. The abuse continued from about 10 until aged 16 when he left the parish. Complainant “Oifa” said when she was 10 in the 1960s he sat her on his lap and put his hands beneath her clothes.

In 1996, Fr Corin acknowledged to Bishop Magee he was guilty of child sexual abuse. He resigned and died in 2002.